Actor Bryan Cranston revisited one of the most shocking Breaking Bad deaths on Tuesday during a discussion about TV psychopaths at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

In season two, Cranston's character Walter White refuses to save Jesse Pinkman's drugged and unconscious girlfriend, Jane, from choking on her vomit. Walter lets Jane, played by Krysten Ritter, die in order to prevent her from blackmailing him.

Filming that deadly scene became personal for Cranston, he revealed at the film festival, when he envisioned his own child in the scenario instead of Ritter.

"My real daughter's face took her place," Cranston said, drawing audible gasps from the crowd. "So it just hits me."

Cranston lauded Ritter's "superb job" acting out the scene. Producers had her choking on a mixture of "oatmeal and Mylanta," she wrote in a 2013 essay on Vulture.

Jesse (Aaron Paul), Jane (Krysten Ritter) and Walter (Bryan Cranston) in season two of Breaking Bad.

Image: AMC

"I remember thinking it was pretty fucked up that Walt would just let a young girl ... die in front of him, but I certainly didn't realize that it would be such a pivotal moment for the show," she said. "That decision was his turning point and there was no going back."

Tuesday's conversation was part of the festival's Tribeca Talks: Future of Film series, which also featured screenwriter Aaron Sorkin discussing the Steve Jobs movie, The Newsroom and the effect of binge-watching on how TV shows are written.

Cranston's session, titled "Psychos We Love," also featured Boardwalk Empire writer and producer Terence Winter. Cranston dug deep to describe his thought process while shooting the deadly scene from season 2, episode 12:

There was a lot of discussion about that and how it would come about. And I had a lot of thought about that. I thought, 'How I would want that scene conveyed' and then just let it go. I first wanted to respond in a humane way: a person was choking to death, so to stop it the impulse was to help. And then he stops himself because he realizes this is the same person who was just blackmailing him and threatening to expose his whole enterprise and everyone's life would be turned upside down ...

But then I look at her again and I said, 'She's just a girl — she could be my daughter,' so you have an impulse again to do something. But then I think, 'But she got Jesse on heroin and she's going to kill that boy who I have an affinity for.' So he's going back and forth trying to make sense of this whole experience.

When asked about the grossest scene he filmed while portraying Walter White, Cranston picked season one's bathtub mishap when Jesse failed to follow Walter's instructions on how to dispose of a dead body with hydrofluoric acid in a plastic container. Jesse instead tried to perform the deed in a second-floor bathtub — which sends the gruesome remains crashing to the bottom floor.

Breaking Bad ended its acclaimed five-season run last September. The finale attracted 10.3 million viewers — the highest viewership in series history — and significant social buzz. The series will live on in a spinoff about quirky criminal lawyer Saul Goodman.

"The finest ingredients are brought together with love and care, then slow cooked to perfection. Yes, the old ways are still best at Los Pollos Hermanos. But don't take my word for it. One taste, and you'll know..."

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.